Previously I touched upon how in some ways, the best method to achieving our desired outcome is to not obsess over it. Hence the clichéd expression: “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.” This sounds contradictory: aren’t we supposed to be ardently focused on what we want?

Sure—the focus generates positive feelings; the feelings are the fuel. However, I recently completed reading Dr. Wayne Dyer’s most recent book, The Shift (a companion to a DVD release of the same title), which illustrates how one’s life may shift “…from ambition to meaning.”

I was pleased to learn that one of the points he makes is consistent with some of the lessons I have shared with college students in my book Dont Wait Until You Graduate—in teaching about service learning. You learn by doing. You build relationships through value. You build a career focused not on what you can get, but what you can give…and you do it NOW.

When one is driven purely by ambition (as I was for many years, even AFTER I wrote Don’t Wait Until You Graduate)—he is in fact foregoing today for a “promised” tomorrow. The problem with tomorrow is that never budges. The future lives in the future, and always will. Indeed, we need to realize that the recognize that value in the process. That is the essence of prospecting. We don’t define prospecting by our address book or the list of names in our pipeline do we?

No. We define prospecting as “…the continuous activity of exploring for and qualifying new people to meet and talk with concerning your business.” This defines not what you will do, but what you are doing. And our ethic to prospecting is building relationships through adding value to the lives of other people in whatever way you can. That is what gives life meaning and purpose—and a life lived congruent with these principles will flourish.

Allow me to repeat a lesson from Don’t Wait Until You Graduate: If you want to start your career NOW….not some time in the future, then adopt these habits NOW. Do so, and your career will have begun before you know it.